Masterpieces of Landscape Painting from the Forbidden City

The Honolulu Academy of Arts presents an exhibition of works that reveal a painting revolution that happened in China during the 13th and 14th centuries.

Exhibition Overview

After more than a year of planning and organizing with the Palace Museum in Beijing, the Honolulu Academy of Arts presents the collaborative exhibition Masterpieces of Landscape Painting from the Forbidden City.

The landmark exhibition is inspired by the goal of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders Summit (APEC), being held concurrently in Honolulu Nov. 8-13, to encourage cooperation among the nations of the Pacific region. This art-world example of Asian-Pacific cooperation is co-curated by Dr. Shawn Eichman, Curator of Asian Art at the Academy, and Drs. Li Shi and Fu Dongguang from the Paintings and Calligraphy Department of the Palace Museum, part of what is popularly known as the Forbidden City.

The exhibition includes 56 paintings from the Palace Museum, which has the largest collection of Chinese paintings in the world, and 20 paintings from the renowned collection of the Honolulu Academy of Arts. Together, these works reveal a painting revolution that happened in China during the 13th and 14th centuries, and forever changed the course of the arts, with its influence still felt today.

At the heart of the exhibition is a group of rare, early works by the four most influential artists of the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368), known as “the four Masters of Yuan Dynasty Painting”— Huang Gongwang, Wu Zhen, Ni Zan, and Wang Meng.

These works have never before been allowed to travel outside China, and are not regularly displayed in the Palace Museum. Similarly, this will be the first time that any of the exhibition’s later Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasty paintings from the Palace Museum will be included in an international exhibition.

The Four Masters are among the most revered artists in Chinese history. They are paragons of the scholar-amateur or “literati” style that characterizes the highest ideals of Chinese painting, and represents a quintessential aspect of Chinese culture. Masterpieces of Landscape Painting From the Forbidden City showcases paintings by these iconic artists and explores their influence on later generations.

The Yuan dynasty marks the first time time China was invaded and ruled by a foreign power—the Mongols. (The Manchus later also took over the country.) The political and social changes of this tumultuous time led to the Four Masters’ groundbreaking artistic vision. They developed a new way of seeing the natural world, and their artistic expression is in many ways reminiscent of Impressionism, although it precedes the Impressionists by five centuries. Free of the restrictions of court patronage, Chinese artists at the time were no longer dominated by academic tradition and could put more of themselves into their work.

“In just 100 years, you can see Chinese painting becoming much more expressive of personal vision,” says Shawn Eichman, Curator of Asian Art at the Academy. “Each artist was finding his voice, and using a new vocabulary to express his own ideas. These artists pushed the limits to explore new ways of painting. Their paintings want to talk to you. They want to share with you their unique perceptions of the natural world.”